The Angels Franchise Deep Four

I'm back with the first expansion franchise in this series, the multi-locale-named Angels. Due to a history half a century shorter than the classic American League franchises, I decided to limit this to a Deep Four, rather than the traditional six. And funny enough, even then it felt like I was scraping the bottom of the barrel with a few of these guys. Let's take a look:

	P	C	1B	2B	3B	SS	LF	CF	RF
1st	Chuck Finley	Bob Boone	Wally Joyner	Bobby Grich	Troy Glaus	Jim Fregosi	Garret Anderson	Mike Trout	Tim Salmon
2nd	Frank Tanana	Mike Napoli	Rod Carew	Howie Kendrick	Chone Figgins	Erick Aybar	Brian Downing	Jim Edmonds	Vladimir Guerrero
3rd	Nolan Ryan	Lance Parrish	Albert Pujols	Adam Kennedy	Doug DeCinces	David Eckstein	Rick Reichardt	Gary Pettis	Kole Calhoun
4th	Jered Weaver	Bengie Molina	Darin Erstad	Bobby Knoop	Ken McMullen	Dick Schofield	Leon Wagner	Torii Hunter	Leroy Stanton

I'm surprised that Frank Tanana ended up ahead of the great Nolan Ryan, but it seemed that he had the slight edge. Chuck Finley was underrated, but he's the ultimate Angels pitcher.

Right field was interesting for two reasons: One, that Tim Salmon ended up ahead of possible Hall of Famer Vlad Guerrero, and two, the large dropoff after the 2nd Team. Kole Calhoun hasn't even been around that long and he's already on the 3rd Team.

Catcher was surprisingly tough. Bob Boone ended up on the 1st Team, but he's not overly impressive a choice. Mike Napoli was tough to put on the 2nd Team only because he was never more than a part-time player, but his numbers spoke loudly. When will the Angels ever have a truly awesome catcher?

Who'd have thought that Wally Joyner would end up ahead of two Hall of Famers at first base? While Pujols and Carew had greater careers, when only their work with the Angels is considered, Wally World edges them out, at least for now. Pujols still has a long contract ahead of him to perhaps take the lead, but he is in the decline phase of his career, so...yeah.